Venezuela’s oil-backed cryptocurrency Petro is now reportedly being accepted as a payment method at 93 stores in the country, with the number quickly rising.

According to Joselit Ramirez, the country’s Superintendent of Cryptoassets, the number of businesses in the country accepting the government’s cryptocurrency has been rising thanks to a new payments gateway called PetroPago, which can be used to accept payments in the cryptocurrency.

At the Carabobo Crypto Convention, Ramirez detailed that PetroPago can quickly convert petros into fiat currency, and as a result various supermarkets – including Ecomarket, Hiper Líder, and Kromi Market Biomercados – started accepting payments in petros. Other businesses like automotive parts dealers, hotels, and blockchain-related firms also accept payments in it.

To pay using petros, users have to install a wallet app that reportedly also allows them to store other cryptocurrencies, and to exchange one for another. The petro was already being supported by the state-sanctioned cryptocurrency exchange CritpoLAGO, that together with Glufco planned the release of a debit card and point-of-sale system that would support the oil-backed crypto.

Traki, one of Venezuela’s largest chains of department stores, was already accepting cryptocurrencies thanks to PundiX’s point-of-sale (PoS) device XPOS. The Venezuelan government ha over the last few months trying to get its citizens to use the Petro by taking various measures to bolster adoption.

Featured image via Unsplash.